Answering a question for someone, I realised this was a good summary of my latest thinking on selling.

Here are a few basic truths about selling:

1. People don't buy needs, they buy wants. If you're positioned as a 'need', they buy on price. Selling at the lowest price is rarely a good way to do business.

2. Businesses don't buy based on quality, or the best presentation, or even, who's a friend of the boss. They buy what will fit into their existing infrastructure with the least amount of red tape and politics.

3. People don't change from what they have to a competitor. They'll change to something entirely new, if it fits #1 and #2 above, but convincing them simply to switch phone services means that first you have to convince them that their previous choice was wrong. This is a losing battle.

4. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. You must earnestly believe that your product or service is going to change the world, or why should anyone bother?

So, to summarise: whatever you're selling must be sexy and irresistable, something you believe in deeply and passionately, something fundamentally different from what they're doing now, yet which will fit into their existing infrastructure without pain.

And that's why selling things like phone systems or services, office supplies, cleaning services, and the like, is so very hard.

If you'd really like to find work during difficult economic times, consider this: think of something you absolutely love doing. Not a business idea, just a thing you love doing. Now, think of the money you or others spend on that. See how you can build a business around your passion.

Doing something you love will not just make your life more fun, you will be much more valuable to others, and selling will become the natural process of sharing something you're excited about, and finding others who feel the same.

If you'd like to discuss that further, and get some suggestions, please feel free to give me a shout, either here or at my email address joel@bizba6.com

I've started formal sales training with Jerry (him teaching me, since he's the master and I'm working up to Grasshopper status.)

My first homework was excruciating, and he knew it when he assigned it. "You know those spammy obnoxious mile-long sales pages you hate, Joel? Go find 10 things they do right."

You have no idea the levels of nausea I went through to get this list. Due to some inexplicable force (perhaps the internet is magic) I found eleven things.

1. there is always a clear call to action
2. clear statements of benefit (not a comment on their veracity, just clarity)
3. assertively and proactively seek out new leads
4. there's enough research that it's not silly wild guessing, but there's also an element of 'fail faster'
5. the ideas are easily duplicated/franchised via systems
6. many of the websites are very visually appealing
7. there's often an option for everyone (try a taste, or jump in with both feet)
8. consistent prominent use of testimonials
9. they always make it look FUN
10. it's always on sale; people love sales
11. they are infinitely tenacious; if this offer doesn't work they just try another one, and if this one works, they do it more

So, during tonight's call, Jerry asked "Which one's the most important?" Knowing myself well, I zeroed in on the hardest one for me. "Tenacity."

Bingo. You don't drill through a 10" thick wall by drilling 9 3/4", right?

Ever been at a party and heard your name from across the room? Through all that noise, you heard a tiny bit of information which is, understandably, important to you.

Reticular Activating System

How is that possible? The same way you can even follow a conversation in a crowded room: it's your reticular activating system. (It's in that picture over there. Isn't it lovely?)

Here's another cocktail party game: remember that time the person you were stuck talking to was so boring you were considering pulling your own ears off, but instead, you started listening to the folks sitting behind you? Never took your eyes off the snoozing boor in front of you, and you could even still hear their voice if you chose to, but your attention was elsewhere. (Oh, come on; you've done it. Yes you have.)

Sometimes, there's just so much going on that you jump back and forth, mentally, between two conversations—without moving a muscle. Just shift focus; over here, then over there.

So what on earth does your reticular activating system have to do with business?

Your clients have one, too.

Ask most small business operators who their target client is, and they'll say "everyone!" Remember the cocktail party? When some random person across the room says "hey; wanna hear a joke?" you don't even hear them, because your RAS doesn't pick up stuff like that. It's a focus tool, and you don't focus on random.

Neither do your clients.

When your marketing materials speak directly to a specific narrow niche, you cut through the clutter, and they hear you. If you're writing to 'everyone', guess who hears you? No one.

But if you're writing to single moms with school age children trying to start a service business they can operate while the kids are in school, which the kids can help with during the summer—all of a sudden, when those folks read your blog or hear you speak at an event, they hear you loud and clear. Their RAS focuses them on your message, because it is obvious that you're speaking to them, not to the room in general.

Specific narrow niche. Choose one, speak to it, get heard, and grow.

There's a particular orchid which creates a remarkable product.

One flower produces one fruit. No mass production.

The flower lasts about one day, sometimes less, and so, growers have to inspect their plantations every day for open flowers, a labor-intensive task.

Like other orchids' seeds, its  seeds will not germinate without the presence of a certain fungus. In nature, it's a rare occurrence, which is why orchids aren't on every kitchen counter.

Each flower must be hand-pollinated within 12 hours of opening.

It takes the fruits 5 to 6 weeks to develop but it takes around 9 months for it to mature.

Each ripens at its own time, requiring a daily harvest. To ensure the finest flavor each fruit must be picked by hand just as it begins to split on the end.

It is the second most expensive spice in the world, after saffron.

So why has the word 'vanilla' come to mean bland, boring, the brainless default option?

Imitation vanilla has given us all a bad impression of real vanilla. Have some good quality vanilla bean ice cream tonight; taste it like a fine wine, and see if genuine doesn't, in fact, beat artificial.

Oh, and while you're eating it, consider what that means in your marketing and your business.

I try to avoid 'me, too!' posts, but Seth says what I'm thinking so I'll just point you to him.

Seagulls spend quite of bit of time standing on ice. They don't wear fleece-lined booties or even warm socks. Why don't their feet freeze? Or worse, why doesn't the ice melt from the heat in their feet, then re-freeze, trapping them?

The answer, and the reason this question comes up in a business discussion, is countercurrent heat exchange.

The arteries (carrying blood away from the heart) and veins (carrying blood toward the heart) in the bird's legs lie next to each other so warm blood coming from the bird's 104 F interior gives its heat to the blood returning from the feet.

Here's what interested me: if you have two liquids flowing the same direction, about half the heat is exchanged from the warmer to the cooler.

If they're flowing opposite directions, though, as much as 90% of the energy can move from the outgoing to the incoming.

And that's where it relates to business.

Old ways of doing business are dying. Traditional record deals for musicians, for instance. If you're creating or promoting an alternative, it can be a long slow grueling climb.

It's almost instinctive to shy away from the traditional when we're trying to be 'the new thing.' But there's still energy in the collapsing empire. Make use of coutercurrent energy exchange. Work close to the traditional lines, but in the opposite direction.

As they spiral downward and you spiral upward through the middle, you'll absorb energy. Folks who are tired of the traditional and can foresee its demise will jump ship and join you. Folks who had no idea there was something else will to the same. That proximity makes the difference between the old and the new much more obvious; instead of a new version of the old thing, you can become a new thing. (I'll write about 'anchoring' and how it gives you the advantage another time.)

It can be cold out there. Don't make your own heat when you can get it ready-made.

James comes home for lunch most days since he only works two miles from home (which is two miles farther than I ever want to commute again.)

One day recently he came in ranting about the incredibly annoying commercial he'd just heard on the radio. "Are they intentionally trying to alienate people?"

Well, sort of.

Some thoughts that emerged during the conversation that ensued:

The commercial was for a fast-food joint I happen to know James won't eat at. He didn't find it funny, although it tried to be. The company spokesperson irritates him. The whole tenor of the commercial grated.

They weren't talking to him, though. They were talking to folks who are already customers, already fans.

Why would they do that? Why would they create an ad that annoys non-fans instead of converting them? Why not find a way to get that non-fan to come in for the new special deluxe extra whatever?

Because it's not a good business model. That non-fan may try the special, but if they're already indifferent or, as in this case, antagonistic, you will not create a convert, a promoter. You'll make a single sale, or a couple single sales, but not a convert.

What about existing fans--folks who already there? Well, that's exactly who the ad is for.

Existing fans were already thinking about trying the new special deluxe extra. A little nudge today, a little nudge tomorrow, and pretty soon they'll remember to have lunch there instead of heading home. And if they like it, it's one more thing to like about a place they're already a fan of.

And what to fans do when they learn something new about their favorite this, that, or other thing?

They recruit more fans. No, they don't try to convert the indifferent, they talk to folks they've already inspected as to fitness, folks who are likely converts. They'll share what they love, extend an invitation, and probably make one or two converts in the process.

Write your marketing materials for your existing fan base. Don't waste time trying to convert the indifferent. Give your fans a flag to rally 'round and a message to go with it, and send them forth.

The result is the Holy Grail of marketing: genuine word of mouth.